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As I mentioned, some people have used urea successfully with no problems. It is a balancing game in the end.

Plants do uptake ammonia faster than nitrates, as that is their preferred nitrogen source. Theoretically, you could dose ammonia directly for even faster plant growth.

01-29-2013 10:49 PM

kochman

I have used in past with no ill effects to livestock. i only stopped using it as i am now using a combination of organic hydroponic ferts and iron. I bought a jug and i dilute like crazy and all is fine.

01-29-2013 10:36 PM

danielt

As far as my knowledge goes, excel is organic carbon. Not a fertilizer mix as it adds one Macro nutrient: Carbon

01-29-2013 10:12 PM

pmcarbrey

Well I guess I can't just be lazy and use what I have on hand. I'll have to go out and buy a bottle of excel I suppose

I use Miracle Grow Water Soluble General Purpose for my emersed growth plants but I will not use the product in my aquariums because it contains: Arsenic, Cadmium, Cobalt, Mercury, Molybdenum, Nickel, Lead, and Cobalt (Co). I value my fish (or invertebrates) too much to do that.

As people have already mentioned, I would highly recommend you not using any (terrestrial) fertilizer that uses ammonical nitrogen (urea) as its nitrogen source, since it will become ammonia in your aquarium (at a pH of 8.6, there will essentially be no ammonium anion formation).

There have been people that have successfully dosed with urea, but I do not think they ever dosed when there was livestock in the aquarium.

i dose urea and NH4 with german blue rams in the tank, they also bread many times in the same tank. plant also grew better with urea and nitrate combination.

Your pH is not good for Urea. It is good for those heavy metals as they will stay in the water and not your creatures. Higher pH with heavy metals like Copper, Zinc, Lead is safer than acid pH which will ionize part of them and make them soluble in water. Plants will uptake those up until some point but they will be affected also. Long before your shrimp have died of Copper poisoning.

I did put Urea in my planted tank. But it is something like 0,5g in a HEAVILY planted 300L tank. No side effects.

I bought mine from the pharmacy as a white salt. Looks like Magnesium Sulfate (aka Epsom salt).

01-29-2013 09:38 PM

Darkblade48

As people have already mentioned, I would highly recommend you not using any (terrestrial) fertilizer that uses ammonical nitrogen (urea) as its nitrogen source, since it will become ammonia in your aquarium (at a pH of 8.6, there will essentially be no ammonium anion formation).

There have been people that have successfully dosed with urea, but I do not think they ever dosed when there was livestock in the aquarium.

Ph out of the tap is 8.6, so no worries there, I'll go ahead and check the box I have lying around and see if it's any good!

i meant to say urea or ammonium based fert become problem if Ph is higher than 7. yours is already high enough to convert ammonium or urea into ammonia within seconds after adding to the water. i wouldn't suggest adding this fert in that parameter.